


Spiral Down

by ArcticLucie



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Destroy Ending, Earthborn (Mass Effect), Feels, Heavy Angst, M/M, N7 Day, Sheploo - Freeform, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect), Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, implied happy ending, mShenko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 11:56:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5162954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcticLucie/pseuds/ArcticLucie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard almost loses everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spiral Down

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I really have no idea where this came from other than I found this [vid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIZarEw9mPo) earlier this week and couldn't shake the feels. I have far too many when it comes to these two cinnamon rolls. Not at all what I had intended for Happy N7 Day, but hopefully it'll do.

He’d been driving for hours, through the night, through the rain, in the beat up old clunker he’d bought on a whim. Building his model ships had always brought him a level a peace that he’d been desperate to find again once the Reapers were destroyed. He thought fixing up an antique car would work in a similar way, give his hands something to do and his mind something to focus on other than his guilt.

But he was wrong. He’d been wrong about so much, so many mistakes he’d made, so many people he’d lost along the way. It weighed heavy on his mind, each day stacking up like a new layer of bricks upon his back, memories and dreams—nightmares—reopening old wounds every time he closed his eyes.

It had been years, _years_ since he’d hung up his armor for good. The galaxy moved on, rebuilt, but he was still back there, still in it, stuck in a prison of his own mind, the price of his choices now a debt he wasn’t sure he could ever repay.

And Kaidan. The love of his life, the only person who was strong enough to penetrate his outer shell, and he let him slip away, through fingers forever calloused by the trigger of a gun. He tightened them on the wheel and tried to purge the dark thoughts from his mind, the ones telling him it was too late, to turn around and let him go, to let him find someone better, someone worthy.

It had already been too long.

Weeks.

He pulled off the highway for a cup of coffee, paid the attendant, and climbed back inside, the soft leather seat conforming to his body. They had no other vehicle so he had no choice but to take her. The radio didn’t work, the lights on the dash would flicker in and out, and he hadn’t sanded off all the rust yet, but she ran. That’s all he needed.

Kaidan had taken their skycar when he left, packed his things while he was passed out on a bender, Ryncol the only thing that kept the nightmares at bay, the bottom of a bottle the only place he could forget, the only way he could cope, but he knew. He was killing himself, slowly, from the inside out, little demons in a shot glass egging him on.

And Kaidan tried.

But they knew.

He was sober now, for days. His hands were shaking from withdrawal, his knees kept bouncing from the anxiety, but he was done. He’d hit rock bottom clutching the letter Kaidan wrote, the one he found under the bottle in his hand when he came to, the one he’d passed out cuddled with on the bathroom floor instead of the man he loved. He had to pull over several times to read it, to give him strength, to keep pressing on.

The coffee was long gone by the time he stopped again, under an overpass, to stretch his legs, to read the letter scribbled in black ink and tattooed on his heart. He ached; deep down in places he didn’t know pain could reach. It ached, just like the first time, just like the last, to know how much he’d hurt Kaidan, the shit he put him through, the anguish, the worry. The fights. The dreams he crushed to dust.

He slumped down against the car and unfolded the paper to read it again, the threat of tears looming on the horizon just like the threat of rain, thunder rumbling in the distance. It was paper, something tangible, not digital, ink-smudged and tearstained. But it was legible, the eulogy of a relationship on its last exhale.

 

> _I can’t do this anymore._
> 
> _I had dreams. You were in them, you were them. We had dreams. All those nights we would lay awake in your cabin, tangled up in each other as we planned our future, listing everything we were determined to live for…it wasn’t this. I have tried_ everything _to help you, but I fear I have nothing left to give. You were everything I’ve ever wanted, everything I fought for, and I will love you with my dying breath, which is why I have to go. I can’t watch you disappearing into a bottle. I can’t watch the most amazing man I have ever met destroy himself completely bit by bit. I’m not strong enough, John. I wish I was, but I’m not. And for that, I am sorry._

 

Then:

He woke up, his head splitting like atoms calling for Kaidan to start the coffee. But he was alone, his rage rising with every twisting trail of ink, knives in his back, and they hurt worse than the acid from the Thresher Maw on Akuze. The alcohol left a bitter taste in his mouth after that but he guzzled it down anyway, numbed the pain and masked the burn on his spiral down.

Kaidan wouldn’t return his calls, wouldn’t answer them, and it made him resentful. He blamed him and he was angry, unwilling and unable to accept responsibility even though it seemed that’s all he ever did in uniform. But he was tired of it, of the weight of it, of living with the guilt and with the burden placed upon his shoulders all those years ago.

Just so fucking tired.

Tired of living.

The taste of metal on his tongue was all he could remember through the fog, fingers wrapped around a familiar trigger, others around familiar paper. Kaidan was the dream, Kaidan had always been the dream, but now he mocked him from the photo on the wall, the day they got married in London. His smile was so bright then, so full of hope and promise, so faded now, dulled like a blade discarded, left unused and uncared for.

That was the click, pieces sliding into place, and it was more than therapeutic when he unloaded the clip into his face next to Kaidan’s on the wall, when he threw the chair into the sheetrock, sent a lamp crashing to the ground, feet cut to shreds on shards of glass. Commander Shepard: destroyer of Reapers, destroyer of worlds, destroyer of everything he touched.

Hardest thing he ever had to do was to read that letter. It put all his fears to shame, scared him more than he’d ever been before, made him afraid of who he had become, of who he’d be without the only thing he ever loved. Because that was it, the straw that broke his back, the only thing he’d ever feared losing. He would never drink again, even if he had to read that letter everyday until he died.

He had names he had to honor, memories to uphold, of the lives that were laid down so that he could stand.

Another choice for him to make: the car keys or the gin.

Now:

He sat there holding to the last lifeline Kaidan tossed his way and ran a hand over his scalp, the fresh buzz a nod to a man he thought was long since gone, a reminder of who he used to be. He wiped away the moisture from the corner of his eye and climbed back in the car to soldier on. That was who he was, he’d forgotten somewhere along the way, but he remembered now.

The Vancouver skyline sat jagged against grey, the cold November day as dreary as his life had become in recent years. He didn’t know where Kaidan would be or if he’d even agree to see him, but he had to try. The Alenko’s had a condo downtown, that’s where he went, handed over the keys to the valet and took the elevator up. But it stood empty, as empty as he felt.

He went back down, his spirits sinking with every passing floor until he reached the lobby.

Those eyes, those honey eyes met his as the doors slid open, flashing hurt and relief and a million other things that his vision was too blurred to see. He felt his lip begin to quiver and balled his hands to quell their tremors. He had practiced a thousand lines to say, but they seemed so hollow in the moment.

Except for one, the only three words he was able to choke out.

“I need help.”

Kaidan’s head tilted to one side as he bit into his bottom lip, eyes welling with unshed tears that he did his best to blink away. But a subtle nod had them falling back into each other with whispered promises he’d keep if it was the last thing that he did, because he knew he’d surely die if they ever broke apart for good.

**Author's Note:**

> [This](http://krystalrayne.deviantart.com/art/mshenko-photomanip-8-338716212) was the picture I was envisioning on the wall.


End file.
